Does Everyone Have to Pass a Swim Test?
by Mary Wells

Will all competitors, both skipper and crew, be required to prove they can swim and can sail the boat alone in order to sail in all future Hobie Continental and World events?
In the latest issue of the NAHCA News (official publication of the North American Hobie Cat Association), NAHCA Chairman Dick Blount stated that the Race Director "will implement" swimming and sailing tests at all future major events.
However, when Catamaran Sailor talked to Dick Blount, he said there is nothing definite at this point. "I just try to present ideas and let people know about potential problems."
The ideas he mentioned in the NAHCA News were that both skipper and crew should be able to swim 100 yards in a swimming pool and that possibly both skipper and crew should be required to, alone, sail a Hobie off the beach, tack, jibe, and return to the beach.
Blount said these ideas have been presented because of problems that arose during recent events. He would not elaborate on the specific situations, but he indicated that part of the problem is having young children crewing on boats and possibly not being able to handle the boat alone if it became necessary to do so.
"We're trying to figure out how to handle it," Blount said. "Should we have an age requirement? Should we have a height requirement?"
And he pointed out that all crews, regardless of age, should know how to sail the boat in the event that the skipper falls off the boat or has a heart attack or is otherwise incapacitated.
These issues will be discussed at the NAHCA Annual Meeting, Wednesday, Sept. 20, at the Treasure Island Inn, Daytona Beach Shores, FL.

EDITORIAL:
Dick Blount, as chairman of NAHCA, is concerned about maintaining the safety of the sport of sailboat racing. He also is concerned about liability that might fall back upon the regatta organizers. He mentioned the possibility of lawsuits and even jail. Since he did not give the specific instances that elevated his concern, we can only give our views on these concerns in terms of generalities.

Although I understand why NAHCA is concerned about skippers picking up inexperienced crews off the beach and about using children as crew primarily to stay close to minimum weight, small-boat sailing has always been an extremely safe sport, with very few deaths or serious injuries that have occurred on the water. We cannot create a new law every time there is an isolated incident.

The idea of preventing children from participating in major regattas is getting dangerously close to Big Brother protectionism. You tread on thin water when you start telling parents they cannot sail with their child. If we can prohibit children today, who will it be tomorrow? Pregnant women? The hearing impaired? People over 60? The obese? The anorexic? The handicapped?
Where children are involved, if it makes the race organizers feel better, perhaps they could have the parent sign a waiver taking responsibility for a minor child on the boat.

And as far as the more general requirement for crews to know how to sail, it seems as though this also could be handled by adding something to the waiver that skippers sign before every regatta -- "I certify that my crew has been trained in emergency procedures for controlling the boat," or something like that, and also make an announcement at the skipper's meeting that skippers must make sure the crew knows how to stop and park the boat. It would only take a few minutes to teach this to anyone. And if people do NOT know how to teach this to their crews, there should be a clinic prior to each regatta to explain it to both the skippers and the crews. Make it simple -- "release this, release that, push this."

Blount's suggestion of having both skipper and crew sail the boat individually off a beach, tack, jibe, and return to the beach is not feasible. On an inland lake, with light air, maybe. (Although many crews would hesitate to take the boat alone even then -- and who is going to send a small child out alone on a boat equipped with main and jib even if there is no air?) And if it is off a beach with surf, forget it. Even a skipper alone could have problems. And if the race committee REQUIRES people to do this, it seems that their liability would be even greater if someone was injured as a result of trying to perform this requirement.

In regard to the sailors knowing how to swim:
It obviously is a good idea for everyone to know how to swim. But here are my feelings on the subject:
1. Competitors should be required to wear life jackets in EVERY sailing event, regardless of the conditions. Being able to swim a hundred yards in a pool is pretty irrelevant when you're a couple miles offshore in waves, current or cold water. The important thing is to stay afloat. The people who are most likely to get in trouble are those who are so confident of their swimming ability they think they do not need to wear a life jacket.
2. If NAHCA does decide to follow through on this idea of making people swim a hundred yards in a pool, it will have no validity unless they require people to perform the test wearing, at very minimum, wetsuit, booties, gloves, trapeze harness, and life jacket -- which is what people would normally be wearing in sailing conditions where they are most likely to end up in the water. And, as everyone knows, it is not possible to swim, in the normal sense, when wearing a life jacket. Add all the other stuff, and it's not a graceful sight.

Anyway, if things have gotten to the point where regatta organizers have to be afraid to put on a regatta, there is one very simple solution -- do away with organizers. If a bunch of sailors just show up at a beach and go out sailing, there's no problem. Mention the word "event" or "regatta" and the red tape starts running off the reel.

Finally: There is a much larger issue involved here. The other day I was talking to Bill Doelger, Chairman of the Multihull Council for United States Sailing (USSA). He said the time may be coming when the government requires licensing of sailboaters, and it is important for the sport to begin policing itself now and make training programs available to "certify" sailors throughout the United States -- recreational sailors as well as racing sailors. He pointed out that if we have our own licensing or certification program in effect, we will be in a much better position to protest and prevent government regulation.

So I think the real solutions to NAHCA's concerns will be found by working closely with the Multihull Council and USSA in developing training programs to certify sailors in a way that will satisfy both the government and the insurance companies -- and take the burden of responsibility off the organizers of events.

With regatta attendance and sailing at a low ebb, this is a bad time to give people more hoops to jump through -- but it is better to design our own hoops than have the government do it.